CL wrote:

>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onsen#Recent_controversy
> 
> Shameless self-promotion.  

You mean he wrote it himself? How does one check the authorship of
Wikipedia articles?

> But Wikipedia is famous for that.

Not famous enough for me to have heard of it, but then I don't use
Wikipedia very much.

> -- do you think that there's any chance Debit profited financially
> from the exchange? 

I wouldn't know. Did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone? Was Diana murdered?

I do know that he'd lose whatever credibility he has if he did, so he'd
be a fool to take the risk.

>> the axe he's grinding applies much more forcefully to other,
>> non-white, minorities. I wonder what sort of feelings people
>> from Korean, Chinese, Brazilian or other backgrounds have about
>> him?
> 
> This is Missionary Church thinking at its finest. The inferior,
> non-white heathen cannot fend for himself but, with the help of
> me, the strong white man guided by the Hand of God (tm) I can
> help him rise above his Life of Pain (tm).  

I'm not sure if you're referring to what you suppose to be my own
attitudes here or to what you feel Debito is doing. If the former, then
you're reading too much into what I said. As I said in response to one
of Michael Cash's posts in this thread (in fj.life.in-japan only):

> As I see it it's not so much about about "white rights" as about
> unreconstructed Japanese attitudes, from "Nihonjinron" to
> outright racial prejudice. The Japanese seem more willing to
> take it from him than from a Brazilian, Korean, etc. - which 
> is racist in itself, but you've got to start somewhere!

The white foreigner can protect his/her "favoured gaijin" status by
colluding with Japanese racism against other, less favoured, minorities
or risk that favoured status by not colluding. It doesn't have to be
about missionary-style thinking, though I can see that it could be.
Perhaps you're right in detecting such thinking in Debito's mindset; I
haven't as yet, but then I haven't managed to read more than a tiny
fraction of what he's written.

[lots of fun stuff about bicycles and screwing with authority snipped]

> He also writes as though he believes that the host nationals are
> too stupid to do things his way (another 19th Century Protestant
> Missionary Society attitude, by the way).

Is this specifically a criticism of the way he goes about it, or would
any gaijin who criticised Japanese bureaucracy provoke the same response
from you? If you answered "Yes" and "No" respectively, can you give
examples of foreigners who have criticised the system in a way you endorse?

> As far as things being "discriminatory" life is about discrimination.
> there would be no human beings if it wasn't.

That's a bit of wordplay. "Discrimination" in these contexts is
synonymous with "bigotry", and life isn't about bigotry.

> The Korean community is going about things in as confrontational
> a manner as works within the Confucian system 

Tell me more. Sorry to be so clueless; I am interested, but really don't
have much knowledge about it! What exactly is the Korean community
doing? I'm not asking for a treatise here, just a couple of links would
be fine, especially if you have one that answers my query about what
non-white gaijin think of Debito.

> Too many foreigners mistake Japanese television advertising and
> the products on offer in the stores for the existence of a Western
> style social order 

I find that rather curious. To me, Japanese television advertising is
markedly different from British advertising, or from that of any other
Western country I know, and the stores are full of soy products,
noodles, seaweed, Japanese sweets and pickles and a host of other very
definitely non-Western products, among which, if one looks carefully,
are sandwiched things like cheese, coffee and cornflakes.

> and I believe Debit is one of them.

If he is he must be extraordinarily unobservant.

>> Going back to the onsen issue, I would
>> have thought his action in suing probably did more to raise
>> Japanese people's consciousness about the issue than anything
>> else ever has.
> 
> Disagree.  It probably did more to circle the wagons, if what
> the host nationals say is true.

You mean people with anti-foreigner sentiments are closing ranks? That
it's getting harder to sit on the fence? That people have to define
themselves more clearly as reconstructed or unreconstructed?

I think there are quite a lot of people who would see that as a good
thing, and I must say I'm inclined to think that the more closely racist
attitudes are identified with right-wing extremists who go around in
armoured vans screaming hysterically through loudspeakers the better.

There's more than one way to skin a cat. Your way is:

> ("Ah, Nanani-san, you're a racist bastard?  Why, so am I.  You
> want to head down to the yattai and catch some miso chashuumen
> and couple of oyuwari?  Yes? Okay, meet you outside.").

Obviously, that works for you, or you wouldn't have said it. It wouldn't
work for me, but I don't take a confrontational approach like Debito either.

I guess we all have to go with what we feel works. Some of what you say
makes sense to me and some of what you say grates with me. I have the
same reaction to Debito. He makes some good points and he makes some bad
ones. Like most people who actually *do* a lot he makes his fair share
of mistakes, but I think it would be a mistake to dismiss everything he
says out of hand just because it's him saying it.

John